Cybernetics
by secretskept
Summary: AU. He was a constantly mutating script of code that evolved according to the things he saw, what he heard, and everything that he took in. Light Yagami was just a Computer Science professor in love with the idea. Welcome to the future of technology, where the impossible happens and reality is what's fake. Light/L
1. Chapter 1

**notes: **here with another story. I hope you enjoy it.

**Prologue**

L saw him when he was hanging out on the swing set in his back yard, needing to get out of the house and away from his computer for a few minutes. He would spend hours at his desk, staring at the screen and only moving his index finger on the wheel of his mouse to scroll the page. His parents were annoyed with him, and they were a bit worried about his lack of a social life. He couldn't talk to people, though. He was smart in every other subject that was not communication.

He was fifteen at the time, and he was so far advanced in all subjects that his parents had agreed to send him off to a college that fall. He'd passed all preliminary exams, his score on the ACT and the SATs had been perfect. During his short years in high school, he'd loaded up his schedule with honors and AP classes. He was the president of too many clubs and organizations to remember, and he'd held a part-time job at the local computer repair business that his father owned. MIT accepted him in the end, and his parents agreed to let him go.

His failure in all things social was surprising only to those that had never spoken to him. Everyone painted an image of him in their mind as the genius who was truly that, even when it came to social graces. Their disappointment when they would try to strike up a deep and thoughtful conversation was nearly palpable for those standing nearby.

His conversations tended to be short and to the point. There was no small talk when one spoke with L Lawliet. If they had a question, they would get an answer. If they tried to ask about silly things such as _feelings_ or his _opinion_ then they would be forced to endure the most awkward silence because L _couldn't explain_ those things.

He was raised to understand numbers, electronics, and to memorize everything he read in a book with a single glance. He had never been schooled on politeness or manners, and he'd gotten into a few fights during his younger after insulting one of his peers unintentionally. The fights were shorter than his conversations, and they usually ended with the offended student curling into a ball and sobbing over a broken arm, a fractured rib, or aching guts. The teachers had punished him only the first handful of times, and then he was put into smaller classes when they realized that he simply could not get along with anyone.

But that afternoon, while L was digging the toe of his shoe into the dirt and swinging himself back and forth, he saw a young boy walking down the sidewalk with his face mere inches away from the screen of his tablet. The device was probably new – expensive even. L could recognize the brand even from where he was sitting, and he knew it had only been on the market for a few weeks. Technology was evolving at a pace that humans couldn't even keep up with, and it was fascinating to witness.

Focusing on the boy again, he was poking at the screen with his fingers – probably playing a game, L assumed – and was going to cross the street without even looking up to see the car that was speeding towards him.

L saw it, and he had been taught to calculate the distance between objects and how long it would take them to collide when Object A was going X miles per hour, while Object B was walking at Y miles per hour. He knew how far the boy's body would fly if the car hit him, he knew which bones would be broken, and he knew the very small percentage chance of survival.

He'd moved faster than he had known he could – one of the only statistics that he was ignorant of – and wrapped the boy up in his arms and turned his back to the car that was squealing to a stop. The boy survived without a scratch, but L took injuries that kept him strapped to the table in his parents' basement for the rest of summer vacation. He wasn't taken to a hospital because the doctors wouldn't know what to do with him.

He was a constantly mutating script of code that evolved according to the things he saw, what he heard, and everything that he took in. He was his _father's_ greatest creation; something that the aging man would become immortal for. His invention would ensure that his name would be forever remembered.

Artificial intelligence was something that people dreamed about in their sleep. Sometimes they would imagine the great things that such a piece of technology could evolve into, while others were terrified at the idea of an always learning robot that would see and comprehend humans in a way that could end in some sort of war. The concept had been around for ages, and even L had endured hours spent in front of the telly while his family watched some Human Vs. Creation movie. _The Terminator_, _I-Robot_, _Transformers_ all planted the idea that any artificially intelligent creature would eventually turn into the ultimate enemy. There was no code that could be written to prevent disaster, because humans are terrible and the technology would notice.

L's father understood the fascination with technology and the possibilities that could actually become reality. He wanted a piece of the pie before it was all gone, and he hadn't even realized just how magnificent his creation truly was. L was something else. Something special. Not just a constantly evolving script, but something with thoughts, calculations, and chances.

L left for MIT that fall. He was a machine encased in the body of a young man, with an expandable hard-drive, a top of the line processor, and with a perfectly organized circuit keeping him alive. The classes were a breeze, as he had everything programmed into him from the beginning, and anything new was automatically added to his memory for possible retrieval in the future.

Originally, he did not speak to anyone for the simple knowledge that he would be taken in as some sort of case study and he wanted to live. During his third year, however, someone had leaked the statement that a robot was attending a top university, and all 4.0 students were evaluated for three weeks following. It was obvious to anyone that questioned L – he wasn't human.

Four years later, he was the top experiment for a technology company that prided itself on the advancement of Artificial Intelligence. His father was bought out, though it didn't take much for him to agree to the terms. Money is a strong source of persuasion.

At nineteen, L spent his days in a padded room with no electrical outlets. The scientists had learned their lesson after one particularly grueling session. They had come back from their hour lunch to find L had ripped his index finger off and was about to stick the ends of the wires in his hand into the socket. They installed security cameras into all four corners of the room that evening and hired two men to keep an eye on him twenty-four hours a day.

They were trying to get to his source code, which his father had conveniently neglected to inform them of how to access. L was absolutely ignorant to his own inner workings (something his father had done for personal reasons), and so he was of no help to them. He sat with a computer connected to his system for hours while the scientists tried to write up a way to break through all of his security and firewalls.

Whenever his father had worked on him, he had been careful to keep all of the code hidden from L's view. All it would take was one glance and everything would be memorized, and that was something that his father couldn't afford. He had wanted to become rich, and that wouldn't happen if he told his secrets.

Now, however, the scientists would work with the code being projected onto a side of the room so that every other programmer could see it, and L kept his eyes focused on the endless lines at all times. Slowly and surely, he started to understand exactly what made him the way that he was.

The scientists were beyond frustrated with him, L knew, and it wouldn't be long before they gave up and locked him away like a prized possession that was only good for being looked at. When he thought about such a future, he was fine with it. He had nothing else to live for anyway.

Until one day when someone broke through his own security that he had personally put in place around the CIA's mainframe.

He watched with interest as they poked around at whatever documents they wanted, set up a system that sent them a ping when anything was changed on the servers, and stole photos of a very delicate nature.

L was fascinated, and that was a rarity.

**one**

He had no idea what he was doing there, standing in a medium sized crowd and watching the belt full of luggage slowly roll by. He'd told the clerk that he was only in the country for pleasure, though that wasn't exactly true. Everything he had done up to that point had been done off of the clock, but it was all connected by a string – no Lighter how thin that string was.

Everything he had done was also legal – excluding the whole hacking into the CIA database when his research was starting to be blocked and rerouted to sites that he had absolutely no interest in.

Officially, he was Light Yagami: Computer Science and Technology professor and a contract worker. If people had issues, they would call him and he'd fix them on his days off from teaching in a stuffy classroom. Most of the time their problems were taken care of by simply hitting the power button, which was fine with him because he charged a base cost of £70 for simply driving out to the house or business. He'd add more depending on what he had to do, if parts needed replaced, and how long it took.

In the evenings or very early mornings when he was at his own small house, he would sit at his desk with a cup of tea or coffee and piddle around on the Internet.

He had two personal computers – one which was used specifically to track whether or not anyone was attempting to get into his _other_ computer, and one that was used purely for entertainment purposes. Entertainment being looking up porn, breaking his way into sites that he had no business poking around in, and digging up information on people that would probably kill him if they ever found out that he knew their secrets.

The university had given him a computer to use for work purposes, and he left it just at that. The hardware was sub-par, the processor was slow, and the memory was small. It was just enough to check his email, read through and debug code that his students sent him, and to basically be the average thirty-two year old man that everyone expected him to be.

It was during one of his evenings off that things started to get interesting. He had every intention of doing a heavy amount of research on Artificial Intelligence, write up a nice article, and send it out to get published. The techy magazines were all salivating for experts to discuss one of the grayest areas of computer technology out there, and he had every intention of taking advantage of that. Plus, he could always use a little extra cash. He'd had his eye on a pricey new video card for a few months now, and he was only a few more pounds away from ordering it.

It was after three in the morning one day, eight hours into a research session, when he finally stumbled onto something interesting. Something _really_ interesting.

The algorithm had been… intense, and there was no better way to describe it. The only problem was the lack of accessibility from his average computer in his average life of a thirty-two year old Computer Science professor with no real drive for future advancement. His curiosity had certainly been piqued, however, and that was enough to get him to dig a little deeper. He booted on his backup computer, turning on all the custom made software that would tell him if anyone had caught onto his trail, and settled down for a night of no sleep.

At five in the morning, just after clicking on a link that appeared to be connected to some database in the CIA, his little netbook started going crazy. He had just found some highly classified documents pertaining to an AI of an extremely delicate nature when the first spam pop-up appeared. Twenty seconds later he was sending packet after packet of porn and viruses across the wires to whichever security watchdog was on the other end of the line, trying to shake him off of his tail. At 7am, he deemed himself safe and shut everything down. He even unplugged the adapters from the wall socket in case the watchdog was good enough to get to him even after he'd gone offline. He'd certainly seen stranger things before.

What type of AI technology was so important that the United States government was covering it up? The security that had been in place hadn't taken long for him to break through, but then again, he hadn't been trying very hard to mask his presence in the system, and he had probably only made it through the first, very thin layer of security. The most basic firewalls outlined everything, while the _real_ defensive scripts were ready to turn on the second an unauthorized guest was found on the server. And unauthorized guests were found quickly and were bombarded with enough packets that were large enough and corrupted enough to burn up a hard-drive in minutes if the guest didn't know what they were doing.

Fortunately, Light did.

Of course, any company with a lot of money and things that needed to be buried had hackers of their own as another line of defense, though most of them weren't on the same level at Light. Technology changed so often that their equipment would become outdated the second they updated their systems, and Light would be ten steps ahead of them on those days considering he was always purchasing new things. The CIA, however, could afford the best and they could get their hands on it before it was released to the public and average thirty-two year old professors.

Later that morning, he was laying on his side in bed with his hands pillowed beneath his cheek, staring at his computers. He knew that his job performance would see a worryingly steep decline until he broke through the defense layers and finally saw what was underneath the underneath. It was just the way he was – the type of person he had been raised to be: keep trying until you get exactly what you want. He just hoped he still even had a job when that actually happened.

The following night he set up camp on his living room floor, surrounded by unopened cans of soda, bags of chips, and one bottle of victory wine in case he had a really good night.

He booted up his computers, turning on all his spyware detection software and doing a quick sweep of his hard-drives before getting down to business. He didn't revisit any of the pages that he had the night before in case the CIA was on some type of alert. He had no idea how they ran things there, and he could have even been completely off the mark in thinking that one guy trying to break through to the system was cause for alarm. It probably happened more often than he could count, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

He would glance at his netbook from time to time, making sure than nothing had caught him, and he took extra care not to set off any alarms. When he finally found his way to the CIA servers again, he scrolled through the endless lines of code and tried to understand the logic. Everything was written in a specific type of signature, which he found strange. Every programmer had a certain style, and their code was akin to their handwriting. Big companies meant lots of money, which usually equaled out to lots of programmers to get the job done as quickly and as efficiently as possible. One signature in tens of thousands of lines of code was strange, but on the same hand it added another layer of excitement to an already interesting case.

It was when he was on his seventh can of soda that he decided to really get serious. He found a small loophole in the logic of the code that allowed clearance for priority members with certain levels of access. An obvious requirement, but the mistake was keeping the levels on a basic 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. staircase. The place where access was assigned to a user was hard enough to find that the creator probably didn't even hesitate to keep the level numbering basic, and Light was grateful for the oversight. He wrote up his own script that would manually change his computer's authority level to 0, which he had deduced as the highest and the one with access to confidential files, folders, and information.

Implementing his code was harder, especially when he knew that his activity was likely being monitored already and setting off any more alarms would mean the end of his average career. He made sure that the signature of the original was clear in his code, reworking things to make it match up even though his own tendencies were telling him that everything was wrong, wrong, _wrong_.

It took him a total of thirteen hours to break through. When he was finally able to open the files that he had first ran into a few days before, he about pissed himself. He scrolled through the pages quickly at first, not really understanding what he was reading and too excited to _really pay attention._

Then it hit him so squarely in the face that he had to walk away from his computer for a moment to calm himself down.

AI technology was far more advanced than _anyone_ had thought or had been lead to believe. There were gaps in the logic, as if the CIA had the end result but no real explanation of how they got it. There's no way someone could just stumble on how to create a machine so perfect that it molded itself to the environment as fluently as code name LL did.

Light called into work sick that day – the first of many – and stayed awake for 32 hours straight just searching through all of the classified files for anything else he could find on the LL project.

If he understood everything correctly, and he knew he did, the LL was a man... only not.

The LL was a robot, but that didn't really describe him right either.

The LL was a thing that was based off of a code written by some retired genius who had lived under rocks his entire life and had sold his greatest achievement to the highest bidder. The code was a mutating script that changed based off of everything that the LL went through.

That was where Light got a little confused: how was the data input into the program? Did someone manually go in and add things for the AI to remember, to evaluate and then change the code to a more effective line? Or was there some sort of automatic updating system?

He wanted to know more, but the documents he was looking through simply did not have the answers. He modified his search filters, expanded the requirements, but still came up empty handed.

"What is this?" he whispered aloud, running the fingers of one hand through his greasy hair and pulling it back with a cringe. It had been four days since his last shower, which wasn't so surprising considering how focused he had been on his goal.

He retraced his steps and backed out of the CIA's server, triple checking things to make sure no bugs had been put into his own computer and rerouted any questioning pings with false IP addresses. He shut everything down, standing up with a groan when his knees cracked. He left the garbage behind to be cleaned up later, and then made his way to the bathroom with the unopened bottle of wine in his right hand. Just before hopping into the shower, he popped the cork and took a long swig right from the bottle, knowing that he had achieved something beyond anyone's imagination.

After breaking into a system once, it's not so hard to break into it again just as long as your first trail hadn't been discovered first. Two days later, Light found himself hacking back into the server, following the same procedure as before, only this time without having to work up his own code. His computer was recognized after a little more falsification, and he was granted access once more.

For months he followed the same routine. He'd pretend to be that average thirty-two year old professor when the sun was up, and he'd go to people's houses to fix their computers, networks, or anything else when the sun was going down. After sunset, when he was alone and had a chance to be himself, he'd sit in front of his own computers and continue his research.

Too worried about being caught, he refused to plant any spyware into the CIA's server or documents to monitor change, and so he would get into them manually every day and check for himself if any updates had been made to project LL.

Exactly three months and one day into his monitoring, he had a breakthrough. It was another one of those ground shattering, earth shaking discoveries that had him quivering in excitement. He held his breath as he clicked on the link to a simple .jpg file, and his skin broke out in goosebumps when the picture loaded.

It was of a wrist, but not a normal wrist.

It was thin and frail looking, as if the person had an eating disorder that left them with literally nothing more than skin and bones. That wasn't what was interesting about it, however. What was interesting was the two inch square of skin that had been cut out and removed to show the inner workings.

A circuit with a firewire plug.

He stared at his screen for a good hour, jaw hanging open in shock.

Somewhere on the planet, at that very moment, was an arm with a firewire port that could possibly be connected to a body, which would make it undoubtedly the most advanced form of AI technology ever. There was no other information about it, just a simple photo of a cut open wrist with wires and things that he hadn't even known was possible to put underneath skin.

He hurried and grabbed his key ring from where he'd tossed it on the dining room table the last time he'd come home from a drive, pulling off the cap to his small flash drive that was hooked onto the ring. He plugged the USB into his computer and saved the picture onto the drive. He knew better than to save it directly on his hard-drive.

Finished with that, he dug around the server a bit longer, hoping to stumble upon something else. He decided to give up for the day an hour later when the searching proved unfruitful. He checked the URL to the photo on a whim before closing down and found that it had been deleted. He didn't worry about it; if the image had been something that it couldn't stay on the network for longer than sixty minutes, then it was something very important.

He backed out of the server and shut down his computers, clutching his flash drive in his hand the entire time.

He had to tell someone about his findings. It was too huge to keep to himself.

* * *

"What is this? If this is just some screen cap from a movie, I'm going to beat you."

Light sighed and shook his head, not surprised by the questions but finding them annoying all the same. "It's something huge, something so big I can't even understand it."

Aizawa was just another average thirty year old with a knack for all things related to technology. Granted, he was more interested in photography, web design, and all things photoshop that most of the things Light came to him about went right over his head, but anyone with even a tiny bit of interest in technology knew about AIs.

"Is this really a fucking robot?" Aizawa leaned closer to the screen, nearly going cross eyed his face was so close to the image.

"I don't fucking know what it is," Light answered truthfully, slumping back in his seat and clasping his hands over his stomach. He stretched his legs out and crossed them at his ankles. "From the things that I read, it's an AI, but then some of the reports referred to it as a _he_, so I'm not sure."

Aizawa jerked back and looked at him with wide eyes. "He's a fucking human?" He turned back to the screen and regarded it more critically. "The skin looks real, but there's no blood. How can it be human if there's no blood?"

Light shrugged. "Good effects?" he suggested.

"I don't know, man. I just don't fucking know. Look at that. It's amazing, human or machine." He pressed his finger against the screen, right where the skin cut off to reveal all the wires. "I'd love to see the source code. Can you imagine how huge that would have to be?"

Light sat up again, more interested with where the conversation was going. "It is a mutating string, or something like that," he said. "Somehow, whatever the machine goes through gets added to its system and the code changes and grows based on its experiences."

Aizawa was slack-jawed again. "That's so amazing." He stared at the picture a little longer before regarding Light with curiosity. "Where did you hear about this?"

That was where their differences became a problem. Aizawa was goody-goody type of guy. He never really broke the law unless it involved getting a bit too drunk. Light wasn't afraid to hack and do all sorts of illegal things for his own amusement. Aizawa would not be pleased if he ever figured out that Light had tried (and succeeded) to hack into the CIA's servers. Being involved in techy things meant living with a healthy dose of paranoia, though Aizawa sometimes took that to extremes.

"You don't really care about that," Light said, hoping Aizawa would just take the hint and drop it. Of course he didn't.

"Light, if the military comes barging through my front door because I am looking at something that I have no business to be looking at, I'm going to haunt you after they put me to death." He was serious, too. _Paranoia_.

Light looked away, scratching under his chin in a nervous tick that he'd had since he was a little kid. Aizawa recognized it easily enough, and it was all the answer he needed.

"You crazy fucking bastard," he said, slumping back in his seat and pushing against the desk to roll away from it. As if putting distance between himself and the highly classified photo would save him from any possible incrimination.

Knowing that he was going to be kicked out of the house anyway, Light gathered his flash drive and stood. He pocketed it and pulled out his keys. "I swear nothing will happen to you. I covered my tracks, and I know no one put anything into my computer."

He left without saying goodbye, hurrying back home to his computer where project LL was just waiting to be discovered and ripped open. Waiting for _him_ to unravel the pieces.

In order to keep his job, Light had no choice but to go into work the next few days. He couldn't skip out on so many classes that even his students started to get annoyed, so he decided to break a few rules and bring his two computers with him. He was addicted, he knew, to something so dangerous that it could potentially ruin his life, but he was too strung up on the idea to care.

He would show his students a few basic tips when it came to coding, and then he'd set them loose on an assignment that would take them a week to finish. He always kept one eye on his netbook, risking his neck because he was too scared to miss something to back out of the servers for more than ten minutes at a time. It took them less than an hour to remove the picture of that wrist, and he didn't want to miss anything else for something as ridiculous as taking a break.

It was during his two o'clock class on a Thursday that his computer beeped and a window popped up. He saw the screen flash out of the corner of his eye, but he forced himself to finish the lecture. He wrote up a basic code to please the students and to make them understand that he knew what he was talking about. It wouldn't do him any good to have one of the better students get so bored that they decided to hack into his seemingly unprotected computer on his big teacher's desk. There were a couple students that he had singled out within a week as troublesome. They'd probably turn out like him: average lives but with secrets that no one would ever guess.

When he was done with the lecture, he dismissed the class and sat at his desk, running his finger over the mouse pad to bring the screen back.

Before he'd gone to work, he'd written up a program that monitored the number of files on the CIA server. All it did was store the total number. If it increased, it retrieved the file that was added and displayed it in a new window. If the number decreased, then nothing happened. It was a very basic program, non-intrusive because he really didn't want to get caught. One error in the code would set off all the alarms, and he couldn't have that. Especially not before seeing project LL with his own eyes.

He tapped his fingers on his desk as the screen slowly lit up. Seconds later the tapping stopped, and he was sat with his head in his hands and his eyes focused on the newest bit of information on the AI.

Project LL was a man. It was clear.

The window showed a full body photograph of a man laying on a steel table with straps around his biceps, forearms, thighs, and shins. His eyes were closed, his face relaxed, and no bits of skin had been cut off to show any of the wiring that made up his body.

He knew it was LL, though, because this time the picture came with a caption.

_Prototype LL source code inaccessible. _

Light smiled at the picture, a strange feeling settling in his gut as he looked over the AI's black hair, his pale skin, and his bared body.

LL.

Project LL.

Prototype LL.

The most advanced form of technology on the planet wrapped up in the body of a gorgeous male.

Light wasn't sure what turned him on more: the fact that the man was simply attractive, or the AI aspect of it. Perhaps both.

He left campus that day with a raging hard-on, holding his laptop bag in front of himself in case someone walked by.

* * *

Popping open his last can of soda, Light typed on his computer with one hand as he took a drink. His eyes were heavy and his vision was blurry from lack of sleep. He rubbed his hands over his eyes after setting the soda aside, cupping his palm over his mouth as he yawned.

He'd fallen asleep on his keyboard just ten minutes before, and though he was hesitant to walk away for even a moment, he was starting to come to terms with the fact that he himself was not a machine.

Nothing of importance had been added to the database that evening, and so he backed out of the server and shut down his computers. He tried to think of anything other than project LL while he brushed his teeth and got ready for bed. He got as far as coming up with a possible grocery list that would need to be purchased sometime that week.

He was about to crawl into the sheets when a whirr of sound caught his attention. He looked over his shoulder and out of his bedroom door to where his desk was. He eyed his waking computers for a couple of seconds before mentally calling himself a coward and walking over to them.

The lid was closed, but he could see the light from the screen seeping out of the edges. He opened it calmly, ducking his head down slightly to get a glimpse of the screen before it was even up.

He was shocked to find that the log in screen had been bypassed, which even he had an extremely hard time doing if he didn't know the password. In the bottom corner of his desktop was a small black and white window. The image was unfocused and incredibly blurry.

He sat down at his chair and leaned closer, squinting his eyes and trying to make out just what he was seeing in the moving static.

The speakers hissed and squealed loudly, scaring him into jumping back with a high-pitched shout. He covered his ears to block out a bit of the white noise that his computer was making, the black and white image shifting and morphing in unrecognizable patterns.

Just when he was about to pull the plug to stop the noise, everything went silent. He let out a relieved breath and moved closer to the desk once more.

"What the fuck..." he whispered, grabbing the top of his laptop and tilting the screen further back.

There, in the small window that was completely unresponsive to any clicks of his mouse, was the image of a face staring back at him in the mess of white static.

* * *

**notes:** this is set in England, rather than Japan. Let me know what you think :)


	2. Chapter 2

**notes: **here is the next chapter. Some have pointed out the likeness to Le King's fanfiction, and you are right. I got the inspiration for writing about an AI from her story, but this is nothing like hers other than that. I really recommend her fic to those that haven't read it. It's in my favorites, and it's really a good read.**  
**

* * *

**two**

"What the fuck is going on?" was the first thing out of his mouth and based off of pure instinct. It wasn't strange that he was talking to his computer, per se, but it was strange to see a face staring back at him while he was doing it. He was too surprised to do anything other than stand there and stare, blinking his eyes and pinching his arm just to make sure the face was actually on his screen.

Sitting down on the desk chair, he rolled close to the desk and poked the mouse. He knew he couldn't close the window – he'd already tried that – but he decided to give it one last shot. He pulled up the task manager and checked the processes, but none of them matched up. The window didn't have a title, and there were no clues as to where it was coming from. He couldn't look at its properties or its source. After five minutes of trying to find a way to view its back end, Light gave up.

There was no voice to go along with the face, nothing that actually gave it away as a man sitting on the other end of the Internet somewhere in the world. It could have been a prank for all Light knew, and the longer that he stared at the image the more firmly that idea planted itself into his mind. The face didn't blink, didn't move, and it was unresponsive to everything he said.

He slumped back into his chair, his elbows on the armrests and his fingers tapping against his lips as he tried to come up with other things to try.

The face was unfamiliar to him, though he wouldn't have been surprised if the white static was simply distorting it beyond recognition. It looked like one of those pictures that had been pieced together by thousands of other smaller pictures. The eyes were set deep and void of any apparent life. The hair appeared to be shaggy, but he wasn't sure if that was actually the case, or if the image was just blurred to make it look so.

It was a man; a grown man with a thin face and a strong jawline. His lips were a straight line, giving his expression an uninterested edge. But it was always his eyes that Light caught himself glancing at, staring unfaltering into his own.

He didn't know what it was, who was doing it, or how long it would stay there, but he went to bed that night with the computer sitting on his nightstand. The picture he had saved of the AI took up the left half of his screen while the black and white photo took up the right.

The image itself never changed. Some days there would just be a black box on his screen, and others the face would be there. He couldn't recognize any type of pattern to the appearances, no set routine that would tell him what he would be seeing that day. It was the toss of a coin, and he considered it a victory if he woke up with those deep set eyes staring at him.

His students were catching on, and a handful had already walked up to his desk to ask for help and nearly had a heart attack when they noticed the face on his computer. There was a thin line between genius and insanity, and in their minds, he was in the process of crossing it. He did nothing to dissuade their point of views. At one point in time he had wanted them to respect him as a computer science asset, but now he just wanted them all to leave him alone. In the minds of the paranoid, insanity was catching. If one of the brightest could fall, who's to say that_ they_ wouldn't eventually?

It didn't matter to him, not anymore. All he cared about was the man's face, the information he was able to dig up on the buried AI, and the small string that he was starting to realize that connected the two.

The window that he couldn't touch was kept on top of all the other windows. There was no way to hide it short of shutting his computer off, and he wasn't willing to do that. He took it to school with him and put up with the questions, the strange looks that were thrown his way, and then he took it home and sat there with only his own thoughts and the screen as his company.

Three weeks and two days of this – long enough for even a man as antisocial as he to feel caged. He didn't like people or crowds; he liked rooms filled with computers and servers. He could talk easier through the Internet wires. If he had an option between speaking to someone in person or talking to them through some sort of messenger program, he would always pick the program.

On day twenty-four, Light went to the store to buy some more late night snacks. He loaded his basket up with soda and chips, throwing in a bag of candy at the register just because. He was tired of not knowing everything, and so he was going to sit down at his desk until he _knew_ where that bloody picture originated from.

The girl at the counter smiled shyly at him. He didn't know any more about her than her name, but he came to the store often enough that she was feeling more confident in her advances towards him. The first time she'd openly flirted with him, Light had been too shocked to reply, and he all but ran out of the store with his bag of food clutched in his hand. The times following that she was a little more subtler, and she somehow managed to learn his name, age, and his profession.

In her mind, that was enough to come onto him every time he went into that store.

In his mind, she was even crazier than he was.

"How are you doing today, Mr. Yagami?" she asked, looking up at him from beneath her bangs while she took his money.

"I'm okay." He kept his tone curt and emotionless. He may have been bisexual, but his cock didn't even twitch at the thought of her naked beneath him. He wasn't, however, cruel enough to want to string her along. All he wanted was for her to stop.

"Do you have any big plans this weekend, Mr. Yagami? Any dates?"

He shook his head, holding his hand out for his change and shifting on his feet uncomfortably. "I just have some work that needs to be done."

She smiled again at him, tucking a bit of hair behind her ear after handing him the change. "Would you like to go get a drink? I get off of work at five."

Tucking his wallet into his back pocket, he eyed her with barely restrained annoyance. "No thanks," he said, picking up his bags of groceries and hurrying away. He didn't look back to see how she handled the latest rejection.

In his car, tucked right underneath where his radio should have been, Light had installed a small computer made up of software that he had designed himself. The computer was basic and compact, with no special features except that it remotely connected to his computer at home. It was connected to the Internet through his cellphone, which was plugged into it through an Ethernet port. It had taken him a little over a month to wire the motherboard to handle and convert his phone's connection into one that could be accessed and automatically upgraded on a different device, but he managed.

His phone company was none the wiser, so he didn't even have to pay extra for it. One of his coworkers had followed him to his car one evening, discussing the latest processor technology, and had seen it. They'd asked why he didn't just buy one of the USB 4G modems. He'd answered honestly and told them that he was a cheap bastard that had been taught to be stingy with his money. He preferred to call it _expanding_ the signal rather than stealing from the company.

Placing the groceries on the passenger's seat, he pressed the only button that was on that screen to light it up. Just as he had expected, the window that housed the face was black and empty. It had been two days since he'd last seen the face, and he was starting to get a little worried. Had something happened? Was there really someone on the other end of the invincible wires that was watching him? Did those unblinking eyes actually see him when he was sat at his desk trying to figure out exactly how everything was possible?

He blinked, then, an idea coming to mind. He'd missed something in his search. Something so obvious that he wanted to scream. He laughed instead, smacking his hands on the steering wheel. His smile was crazed as he started his car, and he made it back home in record time.

He dropped the bag next to the front door and kicked off his shoes before hurrying to his desk. He was practically bouncing in his seat with excitement as he dug into his own computer's back end and checked the one spot that he had overlooked.

His webcam was activated, even though he had not turned it on at any point during the last year.

The window was still black, but his webcam was recording.

He reached over for a small sticky pad that he had thought he'd never use and ripped off the top piece. He stuck it over the little eye on the top of his computer and then slumped back in his chair.

If whoever was watching him was connected to his research on the AI, then he couldn't risk them gathering any more information about his life.

It was a long shot, his next idea, but he was at the end of the barrel. If they had somehow broken past his mountain of security and activated something on his computer without even a single thing warning him of it, then they just might have been still connected. Breaking into something to gather information was easier than leaving through the same door with a bag full of stolen goodies.

He wasn't foolish enough to think that transmitting _that_ much video for as long as it had been going on would be undetectable. The stream was leading somewhere, he just had to figure out where the leak was.

Five cans of soda and three bags of chips later, he found an unfamiliar script that was written with a signature that he could recognize with a single glance. Whoever had broken into his computer was also administrating the CIA's servers, databases, and security. He studied it closely, looking for any inconsistencies or hints as to who the fuck was messing with him.

There was no mistaking the signature, though. Whoever it was knew what he had done, they knew he had broken into highly classified documents, they probably knew he had saved a picture onto a flash drive, and they certainly knew that he was still monitoring all the documents that were added to the servers.

Figuring he was dead anyway, Light pulled out his netbook and booted it up. He got everything hooked up to the network and got busy tracing the intruder. He was not surprised when the trail led him right to the CIA, but that's as much information as he could get. There was an IP address that he tracked to the moon and another that he tracked to his next door neighbor's house – who he knew had disconnected his Internet seven months before.

He was being toyed with. They knew he was tracing them.

Irritated with his failure, he pushed his netbook aside and looked back to his computer, jolting slightly when he saw the face back on his screen and staring at him.

"Who the fuck _are you_?" he yelled, grabbing the sides of the laptop's lid in his hands and shaking it as if it was the man's face that he was holding.

The man didn't move, blink, or shift his head in the slightest. He just continued to stare out at him with his frustratingly blank eyes that never looked away from Light, even as he slowly became unraveled and unhinged as the seconds ticked by. He let go of his computer and fell back into his seat, clutching his hair with his hands and trying not to break down any further.

He stared right back into the black and white eyes, holding his chin in the palm of his hand.

It took less than a blink for things to change, less than a millisecond for another window to pop up onto his screen with a single line written in black letters.

_I am the idea that you crave to know and understand._

He straightened up and put his face right up to the screen, rereading the words and hoping it wasn't some sort of twisted delusion that his own brain was torturing him with. Even if it wasn't his own brain, then it was someone else dangling the treat in front of him.

"What the fuck is going on?" he whispered, poking at his keyboard to see if he could type out a reply. The window was, again, unresponsive to his computer. "Who are you?" he asked directly, not knowing what else to do. Another line popped up onto the screen just as he finished the question.

_I am an idea. _

He shook his head. "Does this idea have a name?"

_L Lawliet. Most of the scientists refer to me as L_.

He froze in his seat.

Project LL. Prototype LL. Neither man nor human, but somehow existing.

"You are an AI," he said, rubbing his hand across his forehead. He was surprised to find a few drops of sweat rolling down from his hairline.

_I am half man, half computer._

He sighed and covered his face fully with his hands, resting his elbows on the edge of the desk. "Do you know what I've been doing then? What I've been up to?" He peaked through his fingers to read the response.

_You've done what no one else could: you broke through my security._

He tapped on his keyboard again just to keep his fingers busy. "If you knew, why is no one knocking down my door and taking me away?"

The face in the corner of his screen finally, _finally_ moved. A small twitch to one corner of those lips that Light had long since memorized the shape of. A mocking smile that made him feel like a child holding up the shoe of someone with too much power.

_I am just as curious about you as you are about me._

"This is insanity," Light growled to himself, pushing away from his desk and standing. "I'm talking to a computer. Fuck, all this is probably being recorded somewhere. Aizawa was right, I'm going to get into so much trouble." He wandered off a bit, walking blindly and not really caring about where he ended up. However, a loud _ping_ from his computer turned his steps around and brought him right back to his desk.

_I know you broke in because I am the server and network. I can control your computer because I am your Internet connection. I can do things that you thought were impossible because I am nothing that you have ever seen or heard of before. _

_I know the size of your memory, the speed of your processor, and the type of graphics card you use. I know which sites you visit, what porn you like to watch, and I can hear your mumblings._

Another picture popped up onto the screen, but this one was only a snap shot of a tiny piece of code.

"What is this?" Light asked, leaning his hands on the edge of his desk and peering closely at the script. The code flowed in the same patterns and held the same consistencies as the signature he could almost recognize as easily as his own.

_The code that informs me when you are at your computer. I have given you a piece of the code that makes me up._

_But I can give you something else. Something better. Something that you are aching for_.

Light waited, holding his breath until his lungs burned for air.

_I can give you access to the building that I am housed in. I can give you me_.

* * *

Agreeing to the insanity was probably his first mistake, though Light couldn't think of actually being in any other place at that moment in time.

When the belt finally rolled by with his bag, he grabbed the strap and slung it over his shoulder.

It was all for pleasure. That's what everyone believed, but Light wasn't so sure of himself. The AI was rooted firmly into the back of his mind, and the image that he saw whenever he now flipped open his mobile was enough to remind him if his thoughts ever did blank out.

The AI had somehow hacked into and had taken over his mobile, though Light was starting to come to terms with the fact that the AI could do whatever it wanted. It was a piece of technology, just another computer. It knew how to control other machines better than any human ever could, especially if its code morphed based off of its experiences.

He didn't know how it had been done and he didn't bother to ask questions, but he'd ended up with a laminated card in his mailbox that granted him access to CIA buildings. He'd been given very specific directions by the AI, and he had no intention of stepping even a single toe out of line.

The excitement bubbling under his skin was hard to contain, however, and he was sure he'd have to stop somewhere to empty his stomach in one of the toilets on the ride to the building that the AI said it was stored inside of. When the taxi rolled to a stop, he was sure everyone that looked at him as he got out of the back seat knew that he was fake. It could have been one elaborate trap for all he knew.

But he didn't know, and so he kept on walking.

* * *

**notes: **please let me know what you think :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes: **thank you so much for the amazing reviews. I'm so thrilled that you are all enjoying this, and I truly love seeing the theories that are rolling around in your minds. Thank you so much!

* * *

**Three**

The lady behind the desk glanced at Light's card and then back to his face, one perfectly manicured eyebrow arching up in disbelief. "You work here?" she asked in a high-pitched and annoying voice.

Light nodded and pretended that he wasn't have an internal freak-out session. "Uh, yes. In the robotics division." He didn't know if they had a robotics division.

She looked even more skeptical. "The robotics division?"

"Yes. We're working on developing and testing artificial intelligence agents. I'd tell you more about it, but it's confidential." He knew that was the truth.

"And you were called in?"

He sighed and nodded again, acting as though the questions were just an annoyance rather than another reason to panic. "Yes. I've been doing research these last few years on AIs, and Dr. Watari asked for me to come in." L had told him to drop that name if people asked too many questions, and the woman reacted to it as though it was the magic word.

She reached for something beneath the desk, and then the sound of a deadbolt unlocking sounded out. "Go on through, Mr. Yagami," she said, holding out his card and smiling politely at him.

He took it back and tucked it into his pocket. "Thanks." He headed for the large glass doors that separated the entry room from the rest of the building. They swung open on their own, moving slowly. He squeezed through the gap when it was just big enough for him.

There were placards with division names and arrows. Light went in the direction of Information Technologies and hoped that L wasn't being housed in some shed in the back with ten security guards standing at the door with automatics. Fortunately for him, there were no men with guns at the door with "Technology" printed on it in bold white letters.

"Here goes nothing," he whispered to himself, whipping out his card and waving it in front of the pad to the right of the door. The equipment beeped and the light in the top right corner turned green. Light let out a breath of relief and pushed open the doors. He poked his head around the edge first to get eyes on anyone that was where they weren't supposed to be.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, and Light nearly yelped in surprise at the feeling. Taking deep breaths to calm himself again, Light replaced his phone with his card and read the message that L had written on the screen.

_Back room. Entry code: 5, 4, 4, 4, 8.  
_

Looking over the top of the phone, Light checked every corner of the room for people before he sneaked in.

He had to remind himself of his mission over twenty times on the trek between the door and the back room. Every time his eyes landed on a piece of equipment that probably cost more than his entire house, his car, all of his computers, and his life, he would drool at the mouth and stare. It was like computer geek heaven, and just walking by everything without at least touching _something_ was pure torture.

In the back right corner of the room, a grey door sat tucked between two large monitors that were rolling thousands upon thousands of lines of code. Light had to stand there for a moment, staring with his jaw nearly on the floor. He couldn't read any lines for too long, as they would roll out of view before he could really understand what he was seeing, but the signature was the same. L's, then?

In the middle of the door was a keypad, and Light typed in the code that L had given him. There was a loud beep, and then the door unlocked.

The walls were a stark white with some type of cushion to them. The floors were equally as blinding, and then Light realized that he was standing in a padded room, much like what one imagined when thinking of an insane asylum.

A black haired man was sitting on the floor in the back with his knees drawn to his chest. His eyes were always on Light, though, following him around as he stepped completely into the room. His clothes were simple: a white gown that looked more like hospital scrubs, and no shoes.

"Hello, Light," the man said, pushing himself to his feet while using the wall as a sort of support for his weight. The gown slid over his legs, and Light caught a glimpse of the package hanging between his thighs before the fabric restricted his view once more.

Light looked over his shoulder as if the man had been talking to someone else. "Uh, me? Um, yeah, hi."

Shuffling slowly over to him, the man held out his hand. "I'm L." He didn't smile. In fact, there was no expression of any kind of L's face.

Light was too surprised to even register that he was supposed to take L's hand. He could only trace his eyes over the human features – features so perfect that there was no way that L could be an AI. No way. Not at all possible.

"Holy fucking bollocks," Light whispered, ignoring L's hand in favor of touching fingers to the skin of the other man's neck. "You're actually real." He pulled at L's cheek, watching the way the flesh turned a lighter color under the pressure until blood flowed back to the spot that Light's thumb had just pressed against. "I don't believe it."

L leaned his head back, pulling away from Light's wandering hands and taking a step back to put some more distance between them. "I am definitely real," he said, his voice nothing like Light had ever imagined it to be. He had always expected the usual robotic voice to go with the first AI. Not something with tone, pitch, and a certain raw sound to it. Robotic in its pronunciation, but human with the underlying tone. He _really_ didn't expect his body to react to it as it did.

A shiver slid down his spine and a delicious feeling settled in the pit of his stomach, making his entire body heat up pleasantly. He was speaking to the most advanced form of technology; such an idea was exhilarating beyond belief.

"I'm sorry. I guess, you know. I'm just, oh fuck, shit, you're _real_. I didn't think you'd actually, you know, _be real_." He snapped his mouth closed, wincing when his teeth clinked together. "Rambling."

L was just watching him with the same empty look, though his eyes may have said something different. Light wouldn't have been surprised at all if L was calling him an idiot in his head. "I am real," he repeated a bit slower. "Am I saying that incorrectly?"

Light shook his head quickly. "No, no, not at all. I mean, yes, you're saying it right. I wasn't saying that you were saying it wrong, that's not what I meant. You know? Oh fuck, can I just... I don't believe it." He turned his eyes away from L and took a deep breath, counting backwards from ten before turning his eyes back. "Okay, I'm calm now."

"Right." L eyed him for a moment. He must have seen something reassuring in Light's expression because he waved to the door and said, "Out there is where the wires and computers are. You can connect them to me."

Light followed him, eager to get started on the study. "Where is everyone?" he asked when L stopped in front of a desk.

The AI grabbed a swivel chair from one of the other desks and rolled it over. He dropped himself into it and held up his arm. "I buried an infinite loop in the code of one of the computers in a different department. It will keep them busy for a while trying to work out how to reverse the effects."

Light smiled, amused, and took a seat in the other chair. He noticed a wire sitting on the desk and picked it up, humming when L informed him that it was the firewire that was used to attach his body to the computer. "Is that how you entertain yourself around here? Mess things up so that the people studying you are about to rip their hair out?"

"I entertain myself by studying my own inner workings," L explained, pressing a finger against his wrist and slowly trailing it down his arm. He was pulling on his skin hard enough that Light had to look away for a brief moment. "I know less about myself than I do anything else in the world. It's the only topic I am ignorant of."

"Interesting," Light said. He held up the end of the wire and watched as L peeled off a bit of skin on his inner wrist. He cringed and looked away again, trying not to gag. He'd seen the picture, of course, but that was nothing like watching someone rip their own skin off of their bones right in front of your eyes.

"Everything okay?" L asked in monotone. His attention was more fixed on taking off enough skin for Light to connect the cord properly.

Light rubbed his forehead, peeking through his fingers to see if L had finished. "Uh, yeah, that was just kind of gross."

Glancing over at him, L frowned a little. "Gross?" He looked down at his wrist with confusion written all over his face. "It's what I've always done."

"Don't worry about it," Light hurried to say, not sure why he was so worried about taking the time to reassure a computer that it was doing things right. "I should really get used to it."

Interest caught, L stopped scratching at his wrist to give Light his full attention. He stared at him for a moment before speaking. "Why would you need to get used to it?" he asked, tilting his head to the side. "You'll take my script and leave me in this place. I know how you humans work."

Insulted and ignoring the small corner of his mind that was agreeing, Light hesitated only a moment before shaking his head. "It took me this long to find you; do you really think I'd just leave you behind so easily?"

The look L gave him was enough of an answer, but he verbalized it anyway. "The longer you stay with me, the more likely it is that the police will catch up to you and take you into custody. It is human nature to fight for survival, even if that means doing something that the human does not want to do." He looked back down to his wrist, rubbing his thumb across the flat piece of metal that surrounded the firewire port. He looked so disconnected from everything, and he spoke as if he was simply reading from a well-known book. "You, Light James Yagami, are a man in love with the idea of technology being so advanced that a human robot is able to live and process things seamlessly. Once you have the logic, once you have seen my source code and have a base of understanding, your curiosity will be satisfied. There will be no need to keep me."

He looked away, uncomfortable with such a morbid topic. "I don't think you fully understand what it means to be infatuated," he said honestly, peeking at L to gauge his reaction.

The AI shrugged and looked up from his wrist. He held his arm out with a small smile. "I understand human emotions from a purely scientific point of view. I don't understand how they could make a person act so irrationally, as I have seen throughout my existence."

"Have you heard of the saying 'love is blind'?" Light asked, unable to let such a topic go without discussing it in at least a little bit of detail. There was a moment of silence as he took L's wrist into his hold and plugged the cord into the port.

"Yes, I have. It is illogical." L closed his eyes, and then the computer that Light was sitting in front of booted up. "A person is not blinded if they fall in love."

Not able to hold it back, Light had to chuckle as such a literal take on the phrase. "No, but they are able to look past all the faults in the person that they love because they do not see them with the same light as someone, say, looking in on the relationship from a purely objective standpoint."

"You're a strange species. You're nothing like the other animals that I have seen," L said, and Light had to laugh again at the completely serious expression on his face.

"You'd give the person with the driest sense of humor a run for their money," he teased before turning his attention to the computer monitor.

"As I've already said, you're not going to find what you're looking for."

Light huffed, shooting a glare over his shoulder at the AI now oddly crouching on one of the other office chairs. "You don't know that," he argued.

L just continued to look at him with that irritatingly blank expression. "The greatest computer scientists and engineers have tried to find my source code. Do you really think a simple professor from England will be able to do what they could not?"

"I won't know unless I try." He turned back to the computer and started in.

The code that made up L's inner workings was familiar, and Light was able to navigate it quite easily since he already knew the patterns and tendencies. The security that L had in place was ten levels up from anything that Light had encountered before, and he was beyond hesitant to just start poking around.

What if he tripped an alarm that caused L's entire system to erase itself? What if he tried to get into a certain area one too many times and L was forced to shut down? He couldn't take any unnecessary risks, and so his study was not nearly as in depth as he would have liked it to be.

"It'd be really nice if I could just take you home with me," he said, the thought slipping past his already pathetic filters.

L just looked at him with an expression similar to the one Light saw on his computer screen for days. "An impossibility."

Light sighed and continued scrolling through the code. L wouldn't understand the sentiment beneath the words, even if Light tried spelling it out for him.

An hour went by with only the occasional comment from either of them. L sat quietly on the balls of his feet, keeping his eyes on his opened wrist and only looking at Light when the human said something that interested him.

Curious about the strange behavior, Light decided to take a break from reading code to ask, "Something wrong?"

L turned his eyes to Light with his brow furrowed. "Nothing happened."

"Sometimes nothing has to happen in order for things to get off track," Light said, shrugging. "What are you thinking about?"

L hummed softly and went back to staring at his wrist. "When people try to work out my coding, it's like I can feel them poking around inside of me."

Light's eyebrows crawled up to his hairline, and he swiveled his chair around to face L fully. "You can feel me?"

"Inside. I can tell when you modify my code even the slightest bit."

Interested, Light reached back and found a spot of code that appeared to be harmless, and then he added a comma. "Did you feel anything?"

L nodded and pointed to the back of his skull. "Yes, I felt it right here." He rubbed his fingers over the back of his neck, tilting his head to the side. He looked as though he was massaging out a kink in his neck, but Light was starting to get a very different idea.

Light stood up from his chair and walked behind L, reaching out and replacing the AI's fingers with his own. "Have you mentioned anything like this to any of the people that have been studying you?"

L shook his head. "I have never bothered to explain anything to them. What I have to say is of no importance."

Smiling to himself, Light felt along L's hairline, searching for anything that felt unusual. "If an AI _feels_ something, it's important."

"I suppose I never thought of it that way," L admitted. "Humans feel things every day, most of which is physical pain. I assumed my father had created a method that allowed me to feel as well."

Light couldn't just let a comment like that go. "Your father?"

"He wrote my source code."

Unable to find anything, Light forgot about his search and spun L's chair around. "You know the man that created you?"

L nodded.

"Why isn't he here helping?" Light asked, his voice going up in pitch with his surprise.

"He sold me to the government for a price that would allow him to live in comfort for the rest of his life." He shrugged. "He wanted nothing more to do with me."

Light let himself fall back onto his chair, holding his chin in the palm of one hand while the other curled over his knees. "Why do you refer to him as your father?"

L shook his head. "Isn't that what humans call their parents? Father and mother?"

"Do you actually think of him as your father, though?" Light asked.

"I was created in his basement. They raised me, sent me to school and then to college. When I was at MIT, the professors thought it was a good idea to tell the government about my existence, which is how I ended up here."

"You went to MIT?" Light tried to hide his jealousy. He was sure he failed.

L eyed him like he had just asked the dumbest question possible. "Of course." He reached back to his neck again and rubbed the skin there. "My source code is located in a chip," he said, stunning Light into stillness.

"Your... excuse me?" he breathed, having a hard time following the sudden jump in conversation. "A chip? What?"

L smiled at him – a fake smile that had probably been copied from a picture in a book. "This chip is how I am able to live. My source code."

Light let his arms fall to dangle between his legs. "And you're telling me this... why?" He waved his arms around at the equipment surrounding them. "Shouldn't these guys know about a thing like that?"

L's smile dropped from his face. "They do know about a chip. They just cannot break through to read it. No one can. Not even my father."

"How is that even possible?"

"He set a password for it by randomly hitting keys and saving it before he could read the letters. The only way to get into my source code is to completely rewrite it. Or guess the password, but that isn't possible."

"And no one has been able to get past that?"

L shook his head. "It's an all or nothing thing. He was too selfish to let anyone else see the code, so he made it impossible."

Light scratched a hand through his hair, trying to come up with a way to prove such a theory wrong. "You can't just follow the connection? There has to be a weak spot, there always is."

Sighing, L tugged at the firewire. "They've been trying to find a way in for nearly a decade, Light. It still hasn't been accomplished."

"Have they studied the chip directly?"

"No, they thought it was just another piece of me. They don't even know where my source code is located." He gave Light a telling look. "I never mentioned that _I_ knew. Why would I ever help them? I'm just a lab rat."

"I thought you said they knew about it?"

L let out the first visible emotion since Light had first seen him, curling his lips down and furrowing his brow as he tried to find the correct words to explain things. "They know that I have a chip in my body, and they know that they cannot get to it no matter what they do. However, it's not the only piece of me that they cannot get into. They just assumed it was another thing that father had randomly locked down."

Light raised an eyebrow. "What else is locked?"

"The other things are actually things that _I_ can unlock if I so wish," L said, looking away as if he was embarrassed by something. Light knew better; robots couldn't be embarrassed.

"What are they?"

He mumbled something too quietly for Light to catch.

"What was that?"

A sigh, irritated. "The code that controls my sexual organs." He scratched at his hair and looked so unbelievably uncomfortable that Light had to smile.

"You mean..." He waited until L met his eyes and then glanced down for a second.

L jerked his head up and down. "Yes. I have code that controls my body's physical reactions to certain stimuli."

Light ignored the phrase that was being screamed in his mind (_I can fuck a robot)_ and pretended like nothing out of the ordinary had been said. "And they actually believe that this chip in your neck is of no importance?"

"Doubtful, but they have never given me a reason to believe that they were on to something." He pulled at the firewire. "Are you done, then?"

Light looked back to the computer screen in longing, wishing he could spend the next three years (or the rest of his life) studying L's code. "I don't think I can get any deeper under such a small time frame," he admitted reluctantly.

L pulled the cord out. "You've at least seen it. You have proof that I exist."

Light made to answer, but something stopped him.

L blinked and his eyes drifted up to stare blankly over Light's shoulder. Confused at the change, Light whispered L's name a couple times and waved his hand in front of the AI's face. On the eighth pass, L grabbed his wrist and stared at him with a firm frown on his face.

"They've found the loop, and they've corrected it. They're coming."

Freezing, Light's heart pounded steadily against his ribs and he was sure that L could plainly read the panic flowing across his face. "What... what do I do? I can't be caught here."

Jumping off the chair to his feet, L jerked his head to the set of doors that led back out to the hallway. "Go right. Hide in the first room on your left. It's the security room, and I am the one that monitors the cameras. I control them. No one will go wandering in there."

Light got to his feet, the chair rolling away when the back of his knees bumped it. "That's it, then? I just hide until I can walk out?"

"Yes."

"But... I want to study you more!"

L tsked and started to drag Light to the door. "The likelihood of that happening is almost nil, but it will be even more so if you are found here. Now _go!_"

He couldn't just leave it like that. He couldn't just walk away from the most perfect thing he had ever seen without knowing that he would see it again. He couldn't just... leave like L wanted him to.

When they reached the doors, Light did the only thing that was on his mind – what had been on his mind since he'd first laid eyes on L's body all those days ago through his computer screen – he held onto L's wrist and grabbed the back of his neck with his other hand, and then he kissed him.

His lips felt as real as any other that Light had kissed. They parted under his, they sucked his tongue in, and they stole his breath with more expertise than anyone he'd ever been with before. It was perfection, just like everything else about L.

It was over far too soon, and L pulled back with a heavy breath. "Leave," he ordered, and he didn't let Light get close again, shoving him out into the hallway instead.

The door shut behind Light, and he was left with no choice but to move forward. He found the room that L had directed him to easily enough, and he sneaked inside just as the sound of footsteps could be heard echoing against the walls.

When he turned away from the closed door, he was faced with hundreds of monitors with flickering images of rooms around the entire building. Many were just different views of the same departments, but the sheer amount of them was daunting. How could L control so many of them on top of everything else he was required to do?

Light's eyes stayed on the security cameras, watching as the scientists joked and unknowingly walked right by the room an intruder was hiding in. He prayed that L could actually do what he had said: control the cameras simply by emitting a signal from his body and connecting to the wireless network.

It was amazing – the AI's abilities – and Light was starting to come to terms with just how deep his interest was running. Technology so advanced and within his grasp was the headiest sort of aphrodisiac that anyone could create.

The jokes stopped once the men walked into the Technologies room and found L standing in the middle of it. Light didn't know if such a sight was unusual or not, but from the reactions of the scientists, he could assume it was.

They were talking, but the cameras didn't pick up sound. He could see their lips moving if he peered close enough, and the tense line of all the men's shoulders said that things were not going well.

He couldn't do anything, though. He could only watch as they slowly made a circle around L, closing in on him as if he was a wild beast that needed to be captured. It was disgusting to watch, and he wanted nothing more than to charge back in there like some stupid white knight. Running away with L sounded like the perfect plan, but the AI had been right: it was an impossibility.

L said something, though Light didn't know what. It changed the stance of the men to one of absolute defense. Did they expect him to attack?

He was a nervous wreck just watching things, but what else could he do?

L smiled into the camera at him, knowing which one Light was watching through, one arm reaching up and to the back of his neck where Light knew the main chip to his system resided. It took just that simple movement for Light to realize what was happening. Without that chip, L wouldn't be able to function. It was the key to his code – the key to his existence.

Light was helpless. He could only stay hidden in the shadows as the scientists and engineers finally managed to get through the doors. They were too late, though. Just as helpless as Light was.

He watched with wide and terrified eyes as L tore open his own skin and dug the chip out of his neck. Those black eyes that could only have been transplanted into his body rolled back into his head as his knees bent and his body went limp. Light was grateful then that the security system didn't have any sound, as his heart would have shattered even further if he had heard the sound L's body made when it finally hit the ground.

The workers all rushed to the AIs body, huddling around him and probably having the biggest moment of panic that they'd ever had before.

The most advanced form of technology, once so very much at their disposal, was now completely useless on the floor.

Light could see the chip in the camera, barely an inch from L's limp and lifeless fingers. It was cracked in half and there was nothing that could be done to fix it. L's _father_ was the only one that knew the source code that centered so heavily in that one small piece of equipment, and he was the only one that could rewrite it.

He had to do _something_, though. The supposed geniuses standing over L's body didn't know anything compared to him. _He _was the one that needed to study and test the chip, not those morons.

Gathering his thoughts, courage, and what small amount of _badass_ he had inside of himself, Light wrenched open the door and hurried into the hallway. He ran until he caught sight of the heavy doors that lead to L's prison, slowing down to a walk and smoothing a hand over his shirt.

"Excuse me," Light yelled, waltzing into the room like he owned the place. At least, he hoped that was how he looked. "I'm here to pick up..." He looked down at the papers in his hand that he had picked up from a recycle bin on his way in. "Project LL? I received an email this morning from Dr. Watari saying that the equipment was to be put into storage."

The men all looked at him like he had just confessed to murder.

"He did _what?_"

Light just nodded and smiled while the engineers started to panic. "He told me that it was a robot, but he didn't say anything other than that."

The men looked frantic, their eyes darting over to where L still laid sprawled out on the floor.

"Dr. Watari you say?" one of them asked before covering their face with their hands.

"Yes. I would show you these papers, but it's confidential. He did approve of my card here." He reached into his pocket and dug out his fake card. On the bottom was a signature that could barely be read, but Light was sure now that it said Watari.

L had thought of everything.

"I guess." They all looked to L. "It's not like he's of any use anymore." Another engineer pushed L's arm to his side with the toe of his shoe. Light had to hold himself back from lashing out at such disrespect.

"If Watari ordered it, then that's what's going to happen," another one of them said, looking so defeated that Light nearly felt bad.

Then he looked back at L's body and remembered just how stupid those men really were. Bastards. Each one of them.

"Box him up," Light said, turning on his heel and taking a seat in the chair that L had been sitting in not even ten minutes before. "I'm taking him with me."

Even though it churned his stomach, he made himself watch as they found a crate big enough for L to fit in. They bagged up the broken chip and handed it over to Light personally. He put it in his pocket, and the extra weight felt like a ton of bricks laying on his shoulders.

He didn't know how much work it would be to get L back to England, but he was willing to do anything, to pay anyone, just to get it done.

* * *

**notes:** let me know what you think :)


	4. Chapter 4

**notes: **thank you for the lovely reviews :) We are getting close to an end here. Also, I tried to fix the editing that FF does with the italicized words, but some might still be squished together. I apologize for any inconsistencies. Hope you enjoy the chapter!

* * *

**four**

Light left L's body in the trunk of his car, knowing he wouldn't be able to get it into his hotel room without catching at least _someone's _attention. Instead, he tucked the plastic bag with the broken chip into his coat pocket and shuffled through the doors with his hood pulled over his head. Anyone with eyes would see that he was a shady character and up to something, but the last thing he wanted to do was get stopped for some random conversation that had absolutely no purpose.

He wasn't worried about having an AI wake up in his car in the middle of the night, and he wasn't worried about getting up in the morning to find that the skin on L's body had started to rot. The crate he was in had been chilled and lined with a cold metal that kept heat out. Light didn't know why the robotics division of the CIA would have such a container, but he certainly wasn't going to complain about the convenience.

Room 105 was small and cramped, but it was enough and it served its purpose. He tossed the bag onto the supplied desk and grabbed his laptop case that he had stashed in the room before heading to L's old _home_. He pulled his computer out and set it up on the desk, taking a seat on the cheap rolling chair and pulling the plastic bag close.

The chip didn't look like it contained the most intricate type of program ever coded; it didn't look like L's future relied strictly on whether or not he could put it back together and fix it.

An impossibility. A chip that breaks in half is no longer of any use. It can't be put back together and sorted through. The information on it can't be copied onto a different chip. No access, which meant that L wouldn't live.

He pulled open the bag and dumped the two halves onto his open palm, tossing aside the packaging to finger the chip with both hands.

He didn't even know where to begin. How do you do the impossible?

Sighing, he put the chip aside and turned to his computer, opening the Internet browser. Google was his homepage, and so he typed in a quick search for _L Lawliet_. Not surprised about the complete lack of related results, he tried to get more specific to what he was searching for. _L Lawliet creator_, _L Lawliet sold by_, _Who the bloody fuck wrote the source code for the only bloody AI on this stupid planet_.

The last proved the least useful, but Light felt a little better after typing it out.

Nothing.

Not what he wanted.

Blocked webpage.

Access denied.

CIA protection.

Nothing, nothing, more and more _nothing_.

He pushed it aside, rolling his head around on his neck to pop the stiff joints.

"I'll never have him," he said aloud, staring at his glowing computer screen. He noticed the time and was shocked to see that it was nearly five in the morning. "Shit," he growled, getting up from his chair and heading to the bathroom. He got ready for bed in resigned silence, mulling over his options but always coming up with no solution.

He had no idea where L's father lived, no idea whether he even lived in the United States or some other country. He didn't know if Lawliet was even the right name to search under, or if L had taken on some random surname as his own.

"I'm fucked," he grumbled, squirting a bit of toothpaste onto his brush and leaning over the sink as he hurried to clean his teeth. By the time he was ready for bed, the red numbers on the clock had switched to half past five, and he crawled under the duvet with a mind that was overflowing with thoughts.

By six he was up again, bringing his computer over to the bed and laying down with it resting on the protruding bones of his hips. His stomach warmed with the heat coming off of the bottom, and he was slowly being lulled to sleep by the feel of the fan humming softly against him when a website on page 8 of his 1,000 Google search caught his attention.

It was an article in a small town newspaper, and the title was what had him sitting up against the headboard and his eyes squinting tiredly at the too bright screen. The article was small – less than 200 words – but it held the only thing that really mattered; it had a name.

**Local Man Designs the Impossible**

Jim Lawliet has designed and developed the world's first robot. AI technologies have been under intense scrutiny the last few years as programmers continued to get closer and closer to finding the answer to the algorithm. Lawliet has not given any comment on the deal, but it has been revealed that L Lawliet – his son – is actually an AI. Lawliet developed the source code for an artificial intelligence agent that matures based off of its own experiences, much like human beings. L Lawliet was sent to the local high school for learning where it received the highest grades, participated in multiple school clubs and organizations, and even held a job at Lawliet Computers and Technologies.

Lawliet has sold the AI to a private company for a hefty sum of 14 billion. Details are still forthcoming, but it is clear that technology has taken a turn for the best. It is unknown whether Lawliet is working on any new advanced technologies, but it can be assumed that Lawliet still has a very important role to play in the future of artificial intelligence.

Smiling, Light clicked on his Google bar and searched for _Jim Lawliet_. He hacked his way easily into a business database and retrieved the man's address, happy to find that he lived in the country. It would be a four hour drive to his house, but Light wasn't bothered. Four hours was better than, say, the man being in a different country or, worse, dead.

Powering off his computer, Light closed the lid and put the computer on the nightstand. He needed to get at least a couple hours of shut eye before driving off to find Mr. Lawliet.

* * *

The house was small and surprisingly unoriginal for a man who was supposedly rich enough to afford a huge slice in stock from multiple business and corporations, as the research Light had done had told him.

There were no intimidating columns, it wasn't made out of brick or stone, and the lawn care was abysmal. It was simply your usual low income, boring house that blended in nicely with the neighboring low income, boring houses. The grass had brown spots and the one tree in the yard looked close to death, if it wasn't there already. The front door had chipped paint, and the small window in the center of it was so dirty that Light couldn't even peek through it. Disgusting really.

He stood on the front step for a few minutes, talking to himself and trying to work up the courage to knock. He wasn't really sure what he would do once the door was opened, and he didn't know how he would explain the body in the trunk of his rented car, but he had to try. The chip was still in his pocket, and the only hope that it would ever be fixed rested on the shoulders of the man living inside of that ridiculously common house.

"Okay. Doing this for the good of technology," he told himself, lifting a hand and slamming his knuckles three times against the wood door. "Give him five minutes. Five minutes. Then the door is getting broken down."

He didn't have to wait longer than one minute, however, before the door was opened by an elderly woman with snow white hair.

He gave her his politest of smiles, ignoring the icy glare she was directing at him. "Hi, I'm here to talk to Mr. Lawliet."

The woman – Mrs. Lawliet he assumed – didn't look particularly happy to hear that come from him. "He's not available." When she started to close the door, Light panicked and shot his hand out to catch it before the latch connected. "Excuse you!"

Shoving his shoulder against the door, Light started blabbing out everything that came to his mind without a filter. "Please! Please! He's my last hope! AIs – I mean, I have an AI. He's in my car. He's dead. Or, well, he was never _alive _to begin with, but now his chip is broken and he's dead. I want him back. I want Mr. Lawliet to bring him back. I want him. Please." He took a deep breath. Mrs. Lawliet hadn't slammed his hand in the door, so he assumed he at least had her attention. "Please. I am begging you: let me talk to him. Just talk, that's all."

She was staring at him with her wrinkled face screwed up with confusion. Her eyes were a dark gray and familiar to those that were always calculating. They stood staring at each other for a moment, and then she pulled the door open just a little more.

"He's in the basement," she said, her voice cracked and weak. She hobbled back, and Light followed inside.

The house had no personal touch to it. The walls were bare of pictures, there were no knickknacks on the counters or tables, and the windows were covered with dark drapes. He was taken down a flight of narrow stairs to an unfinished basement. The walls were covered with sheetrock, the seams filled with drywall mud and nails. The floor was simply cold cement, but the basic design of it all went well with the room that Mrs. Lawliet led him to.

It was a computer, server, testing, experimenting, and designing room all in one. Monitors covered one entire wall from floor to ceiling, varying in the pictures being displayed. The majority contained lines upon lines of code, while the others were asleep with screen savers darkening the screen.

"Holy shit," Light whispered, turning his head every which way in amazement. He wandered over to one of the screens, staring with his jaw on the ground at the code that he couldn't even understand. "This is fucking _insane_."

"He's here," Mrs. Lawliet said, her voice harsh enough that it had Light's attention immediately.

Turning away from the monitors, he looked toward the corner of the room where a man sat hunched over in a chair made for royalty. He was old, sporting pepper gray hair, wrinkled skin, and his hands shook whenever they weren't clutching the arm rest.

"Mr. Lawliet?" Light stepped closer, noticing how Mr. Lawliet's eyes didn't follow him. Instead, he stared off at one point with absolutely no focus to his gaze. "I'm Light Yagami, a professor from the UK."

Mr. Lawliet's head turned slightly towards him, but his eyes remained focused on nothing. "I don't care. Why would I care?" he grumbled, tilting his head to the side. "What do you want?"

Seeing no point with small talk since the couple had proved to be completely inept when it came to socializing (worse than Light himself), he jumped right to the point. "L Lawliet," he said, keeping his voice firm. He had to sound confident, or else he knew that he would get trampled.

The reaction was immediate: Mrs. Lawliet's eyes lit up and she straightened up her spine. Mr. Lawliet's head jerked back as if he'd been slapped, but his expression remained blank and his eyes glazed as he stared at the wall.

"L?" Mrs. Lawliet whispered, stumbling back a few steps until her hand came in contact with the wall. She leaned heavily on it for support, holding her other hand to her chest. "My L?"

Light's heart nearly broke as he realized that she had put two and two together. Had she loved L? He didn't know the answer to that, but the expression on her face was about to tear him in two. They were his parents, they had raised him, put him through school.

He turned his eyes to Mr. Lawliet, narrowing them at his down turned face.

Mr. Lawliet had sold his own son for the sake of science. His own _son_. Their reactions were enough to know how much they'd loved him – Mrs. Lawliet did at least.

"The AI in my car is L. I need help, please. I need his source code." He rubbed his hands over his face, not wanting to see if they hate him for what he'd caused. "He pulled the chip out of his own skull because I was about to get caught. I broke into the bloody CIA to get to him. I want him, but he's dead. Or, he's broken. I need his source code. I need him."

Silence was the only answer he received.

Unable to handle it, he dropped his hands back to his sides and blinked at the two in front of him.

"He can't help you," Mrs. Lawliet said, shaking her head. Her cheeks were wet. "He's blind. He can't code anything, much less redo the most complicated algorithm he's ever created."

Eyes wide enough that the skin around them was aching with the strain, Light turned his attention to Mr. Lawliet, taking in the glazed look on his face and the strange coloring to his eyes. "No. No, this is not happening," he muttered aloud, stepping towards the old man and bending down a bit to get a better look. "This is all one big joke. You can see. You have the answer. I _need _him."

"I can't help you."

Mrs. Lawliet made a choking sound, as if she was trying to hold back a sob. When Light looked at her, she had turned away and was moving out of the room. He let her go; his business was with Mr. Lawliet.

Turning back to the older man, Light sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to come up with the best way to go about things. "All I need to know is the logistics of the source code. I don't even know where to begin because I've never seen it. I can code it myself."

Mr. Lawliet shook his head. "I can't help you," he repeated.

Light panicked once more, stepping up to the old man and grabbing him by his arms. "Please, I'm begging you. I'll get on my fucking knees and beg you. I just need some help. He's _dead _because of me, and I want him back."

Mr. Lawliet was still shaking his head. "No, I can't give you the source code."

Growling, Light turned away in frustration. He wanted to scream, curse, to do anything that would change the blank and uncaring expression on Mr. Lawliet's face. Did the man truly not love the man that he'd raised? Was L just a piece of technology to him? His greatest creation, sold to the company with the highest bid, and he didn't have trouble sleeping at night.

"I'm getting him," Light said, though he didn't know what good it would do. He just wanted L in the same room as him.

It took a while, but Light managed to lug the crate with L's body into the house and down to the basement. Mr. Lawliet told him to leave, told him that he didn't want to help, but Light ignored everything coming from him. L needed help, and Mr. Lawliet was going to fix him.

He found a metal table folded up in one of the corners and brought it out to lay L on. He was pulling the lid off of the crate when Mr. Lawliet finally said something worth listening to.

"I have a second chip."

Frozen with his arms outstretched, Light turned his head to face the old man. "You have... another chip?"

He nodded. "The algorithm is incorrect. It never worked." He closed his useless eyes. "I kept it because it was the first. A keepsake."

Standing up straight, Light turned to face him with his hands clasped together. He was prepared to beg, to do whatever it took to get his hands on that chip. "Can I have it?" he asked, holding his breath for the answer.

Mr. Lawliet waved a hand through the air. "No, it's useless."

Light quickly walked up to him, putting his hands on Mr. Lawliet's shoulders to keep him from turning away completely. "Please. If I could just see it, maybe I can find the mistake."

"Get off of me," Mr. Lawliet growled, shrugging Light's hands off of himself. "Do not touch me."

"I'm sorry." Light held his hands up in front of himself in apology before remembering that such an action would was useless. "I'm just desperate."

The old man sneered at him, staring off right over Light's shoulder but looking no less intimidating. He held everything that Light wanted inside of his palm, and he could crush it all if he so desired.

"I spent years perfecting the algorithm," he said, coughing until a bit of spittle started to roll down his chin. "You aren't going to get the source code only to take what I created and claim it as your own."

Offended, Light straightened up and pointed towards the messy desk. "I don't care what you can do with a keyboard, I don't care how bloody _genius _your code is. I just want L!" He stomped over to the crate that held L's body, grabbing him under the arms and lugging him out. "You're going to look at his fucking chip and you're going to bring him back. I don't care if you're blind, deaf, or paralyzed; you're going to do this."

He dragged L over to the metal table, struggling with the weight in his arms while trying to make sure that L's head didn't get hit on anything. He laid the AI on the table, straightening his legs out and placing his arms at his side. Finished, he moved to the head of the table and took L's face between his hands, smoothing them through the black hair and running the pads of his thumbs over L's rarely closed eyes.

"You're going to bring him back, and he's going to wake up and be fine."

Mr. Lawliet snorted, turning his head away as if he couldn't even bear to look in Light's direction even with unseeing eyes. "He's finished."

Light wouldn't believe it, not when L was laying there. Not when he could touch the AI's neck, his body, and see him. He was here and he could be fixed, Light just had to find that second chip.

Frowning down at the slack face beneath him, Light turned L's head from side to side, wincing at the gaping wound on the back of the AI's head. There was no blood, but seeing a hole there was enough to make his weak stomach churn. Those lips that he had only seen form words for too short of a time were limp and closed, the natural downturn tilt of them giving L a sad look even in death.

"I'll fix you," Light whispered, not caring if Mr. Lawliet was listening to him. The old man probably thought he was insane anyway.

Brushing his hands through the black hair on L's head, he smoothed them away from the AI's forehead. The perfect being in his hands, and yet still so far out of reach.

Why had he done it? Why had he destroyed the one thing that kept him away?

Shaking his head, Light stepped back, watching L's head lull to the side without his hands holding it straight. "Where is it?" he asked, looking back towards Mr. Lawliet with his mind set. He would get his hands on that chip, no matter what he had to do. "I want it. I'll give you my life savings for it. I'll keep L here and do the research on your own computers. I won't take it out of here unless it's in L's skull."

Mr. Lawliet was facing him, and the eeriness of his stare had Light closing his mouth. "Why is it so important to you? What is in it for you, if not the wealth and fame that you could gain?" His voice was laced with distrust and anger, as if he felt Light was wandering into his territory and taking over. In a way, that might have been what Light was doing, but since Mr. Lawliet had sold L, Light assumed he had at least a small right to stake claim on the AI.

"L is what I want," he answered, walking back over to the table that L was laying on. "He is the most brilliant man that I've spoken to, and I only got to talk to him for an hour or so." He paused for a moment, reaching out and cupping L's cheek with his hand. "I'm already addicted."

"Fine," Mr. Lawliet said, and Light's head shot up immediately. "I'll give it to you on one condition."

"Anything. Anything at all." Light walked back over to him, ready to drop to his knees and kiss the man's shoes.

He was taken by surprise, then, when Mr. Lawliet reached out and gripped his arm with shocking precision. The old man tugged him down until he was close, and if Mr. Lawliet could have actually seen, Light was sure he would have been getting the stare down of his life.

"It doesn't leave this house unless L is awake and can show me that he has it locked and secured," Mr. Lawliet said, his grip on Light's arm tightening until his gnarled nails broke through his skin. Light winced, but he didn't try to get away.

"I understand." He would do whatever he was told if it meant he was one step closer to bringing L back.

Mr. Lawliet let his arm go, reaching back and blindly feeling along the drawers of the desk he was closest to before pulling open one of the drawers. "It's in there, in a plastic case."

Light moved quickly, excited, and dug through the drawer until he found what he assumed Mr. Lawliet was talking about. "This?" He popped open the lid to the case, standing still for a moment when he got sight of what was inside.

The chip was identical to the broken one in his pocket, and his hands shook as he took it over to one of the computers. He sat down in the rolling chair, scooting it close to the desk as he plugged the chip in. He didn't bother asking for permission again, as he would have simply ignored it if Mr. Lawliet told him that he couldn't _look_.

"I'm of no use to you," Mr. Lawliet said, getting up from his chair and feeling his way to the stairs. "You're on your own."

Light watched over his shoulder as the old man hobbled up the stairs, taking a nervous swallow as the weight of everything started to press down onto his shoulders.

When the code was opened, Light didn't even know what he was looking at. He was fluent in all of the computer languages: java, JavaScript, C, C#, C++, PHP, Assembly... but what he was looking at at that moment was nothing that he could understand.

On line 1025, Mr. Lawliet had commented out a bit of code and had left a note that the problem started there. The method was titled MEMORY, and the logistics were _incredible_.

The algorithm rated L's experiences on a numeric scale, where the moment would remain in his memory for a certain length of time the higher it was ranked. In the middle of the method was the only other comment:

/*short term. Evaluation scale faulty. Data clog if processing for extended periods.*/

He looked over to where L's body was laying, scrambling through all the thoughts in his mind, trying to find the mistake in the algorithm that would fix everything. How could he make it so that the memories didn't clog up L's limited memory space? Something that Mr. Lawliet had done on the old chip had been enough for L to remember things, to evolve and evaluate future experiences on his past. The only question was _how in the hell did he do it_?

Light growled and ran his hands through his hair, tempted to yank the strands right out of his skull. Why couldn't Mr. Lawliet have just helped? The selfish bastard knew the answer, knew how to bring L back to life, and yet he just _couldn't tell _how it was done.

Huffing in anger, Light went back to the computer screen, rolling himself over to the desk and scrolling once more through the code. It was all genius, all perfect, all so intimidatingly advanced that he was drowning in the logic of it. Mr. Lawliet hadn't bothered to comment any of the code other than a title for all the separate methods and functions, worded in a way that Light couldn't make any sense of.

Was there really nothing that he could do?

* * *

**notes:** please let me know what you think :D


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